1. Technical Field
The present invention generally relates to a handheld device and method for measuring the quality of an optical link and, more particularly, to a device and method for measuring the power and service quality of an optical link in a Passive Optical Network (PON) and an Active Optical Network (AON), which are parts of Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) technology.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, due to the explosive increase in mobile data traffic, attempts to realize broadband, long-distance, highly integrated wired/wireless networks have been actively made.
In particular, in a wired optical network field, 1G Ethernet-PON (E-PON) and 2.5G Gigabit-PON (G-PON) technologies have been commercialized and propagated to individual homes.
Further, it is expected that 10G E-PON technology and 10 Gigabit-PON (XG-PON) technology will be completely standardized and commercialized in the near future.
In this way, as optical network technology has been realized as broadband technology, existing copper wire-based subscriber network infrastructure is expected to be rapidly replaced with optical-based network infrastructure.
To provide fast and reliable service in the ever-expanding optical-based network infrastructure, the strengthening of network management functions is critically required. In particular, an optical power meter for checking the presence or absence of signals in an optical line (optical link) and the strength of the signals is a portable measuring instrument that must be carried by an engineer when a new subscriber subscribes to service or when the engineer travels to the site of an incident based on a trouble report.
In a current process related to the case where a new subscriber subscribes to Internet service, an engineer first travels to the worksite and measures the signal strength of an optical link using an optical power meter. If the measured signal is strong enough to support communication, the engineer connects a desktop Personal Computer (PC) or a notebook computer to an Optical Network Terminal (ONT), which is a modem device for a subscriber, and then measures Internet service quality.
Generally, the term “Internet service quality” refers to upstream/downstream bandwidth and service latency, but may include jitter or other performance indices. The resultant measured optical link quality values may be directly shown to the subscriber at the installation site, or may be reported to the subscriber via email or Short Message Service (SMS). Further, quality measurement data is stored in the subscriber management server of the network service provider, and then the provision of service is completed.
As described above, to provide Internet service, there is an inconvenience in that an engineer must carry two types of devices, namely the optical power meter and the notebook computer. In addition, from the standpoint of the communication service provider, a problem may arise in that notebook computers must be provided to all engineers merely to perform an optical link quality test, thus increasing the economic burden.
Another current problem arises in that it is difficult to guarantee the reliability of measurement data when the quality of an optical link is periodically inspected. The reason for this is that an engineer is forced to travel to the worksite, measure the quality of the optical link, and manually enter the measurement results. The current operation and management system for causing the engineer to manually enter resultant values in this way is problematic in that it is difficult to determine, using only the system, whether the engineer has personally performed the measurement and entered the resultant data, or whether the engineer entered false data without actually travelling to the worksite.
As preceding technologies related to the present invention, there are disclosed Korean Patent Application Publication No. 2012-0117353 (entitled “One Body Type Optical Power Meter Having Fault Position Finder”), and Korean Patent Application Publication No. 2012-0030397 (entitled “Method and Apparatus for Fault Discovery in a Passive Optical Network (PON)”).